According to this article over a billion frogs each year are taken from the wild for human consumption. This figure was arrived at by analysing UN trade data although it appears that the global trade in wild frogs could actually amount to many more frogs appearing on our plates. France and the US are the two main importers of frogs but other countries in East Asia also consume large amounts of the creatures. With one third of all amphibians now listed as threatened species the article suggests that we might have to start looking at how many frogs are taken from the wild and limiting this number before we start to see a decline similar to the situation with global fisheries. Poor Froggies.

According to this article one in three workers in the UK have admitted to having watched porn on their computer at work. What is perhaps more surprising is that more than 33 per cent of those have managed to get away with it with only 7 per cent getting caught in the act. The survey was based on responses from 400 office workers. Amongst other findings were that 56 per cent had returned to work drunk after a lunch time session in the pub and 59 per cent had been ill in the office because they had a hangover. I do find the statistics on watching porn a little surprising especially as many companies will consider visiting porn sites whilst at a work an instantly sackable offence. I do wonder why you would feel the need to watch porn at work, its not that I have a problem with people watching porn, but I mean that's why you have a computer at home.

This article suggests that it could be a dark day for grey squirrels as black squirrels become the more dominant variety. Black squirrels are now rapidly wiping out their grey cousins in parts of Britain, much as the grey squirrel has already done with our native red squirrels which are now only found in a few remote locations. The black squirrels are thought to be descended from just one individual that was released into the wild about 130 years ago. Black squirrels are faster, fitter more aggressive and more territorial than the greys meaning that they can compete better for food and mates. According to the article this is the biggest change in squirrel demographics since the native red squirrels were almost wiped out by the grey squirrel 50 years ago. It seems the grey squirrel could now suffer the same fate.

If you like me have an ancient car then you might find this idea interesting. Under plans suggested by the EU Industry Commissioner car owners could be paid £1000 in order to scrap their old car in favour of a greener model. The scheme would be targeted at people who have a car that is at least ten years old. My beast certainly qualifies, it will 20 years this year. It still goes quite well for an old car, although I dread the MOT every April thinking it might be its last. £1000 would go someway towards me getting something a bit newer, so it will be worth watching to see if this idea comes to anything.

Sainsbury's have announced that they will stop selling eggs from battery hens making it the first of the big four supermarkets to do so. Under new EU legislation which comes into force in three years battery cages will be banned, but farmers will be able to use larger enriched cages. Sainsbury's, however, will do away with cages altogether and will also stop using eggs from cages hens in its own label food ranges. Marks and Spencer, Waitrose and the Co-op have already banned eggs from caged hen in their stores. I have been choosing eggs from what I call "running about chickens" for a long time because they tend to taste better, its good to know that only these eggs will be on sale in Sainbury's in the future.

I came across this picture today which likens the situation in one village to a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. The picture simply shows hundreds of pigeons which have descended on a village in the West Midlands. At one point there were so many that they turned the sky black as they landed. It is not known why there are so many of the birds but it is possible that it is due to the scarcity of food in the countryside during this years cold winter. Apparently they are no threat to people but they certainly look slightly menacing and they do remind of the movie The Birds.

According to Camelot £7.2 million of Lottery wins remain unclaimed. The prizes includes three jackpot prizes of more than a £1 million. If you have a lottery ticket lying around gathering dust it might be worth checking it to see if you have won. Unfortunately for me although I do a line of number every week mine are not winning ones, I must just pick rubbish numbers.

If you like dressing up your pet then you need to be careful. Animal welfare charities have claimed that forcing pets to wear clothes can be harmful and that in some case there could be grounds to prosecute. Many top fashion designers now produce clothes for dogs but experts have said that clothing should only be put on pets when it is necessary, such as protecting short haired dogs during cold weather. Animal welfare officers have also warned that in some cases dog clothing can cause your pet to overheat and that owners have a duty of care towards their animals. Well I think I am safe here, I would be lucky if I could even get a hat on any of my cats without losing a finger or two.

I see a lots of articles about people who simply have too many cats. This latest one looks at a case where a lady had 48 cats in her house. RSPCA inspectors found two dead kittens in a kitchen cupboard at her house with the other cats living in poor conditions. Three of the cats had to put down whilst the others were signed over the RSPCA who hope to find them new homes. This leaves the question how many cats are too many cats? I have four cats (pictured) which is quite a lot and they tend to take over the house, generally two sit on each sofa and you have to kick them off if you want a seat yourself. I think four cats is at the top end of the normal scale before you start turning into one of these crazy cat ladies that has 30+ cats. Saying that I did see a rather cute little kitten this morning......

This article suggests that the amount of calories contained in food could soon be printed on menus of restaurants and takeaways. The idea is part of an initiative to try and encourage healthy eating and steer people away from the unhealthy option. Its quite a good idea for those who are following strict diets. Personally I eat out so rarely now that when I do I want something tasty and full of calories, I don't think seeing how many the food contained would change what I ordered.

This is quite interesting its an article about a cat called Leo who's job is to walk past potential guide dogs to try and get a reaction. The cat is an important member of staff at a training school for guide dogs. If the dog passes the training exercise it will not pay attention when the cat walks past it. If in the worst case scenario the dog chases the cat then it is not deemed to be a suitable guide dog and fails its training. The dog in this picture doesn't seem to be too bothered by the cat, I think he probably passed the test.

This is quite funny, its a show home with a slight difference. Whilst most show homes are pristine and look and have like they have never been lived in, this one is set up to look like a teenagers bedroom, to give the room that authentic feel. The room features an unmade bed, a half eaten pizza on the carpet and a pair of smelly trainers as well as crisps trodden in the carpet and clothes spread all over the floor.

According to this article a device called the iPosture could help you to get rid of back pain in just two weeks. The iPosture device looks similar to a small badge. It can be stuck onto the skin, or attached to a strap. It works by vibrating when the wearer slouches for more than three degrees for one minute. The vibrations stop when the back is straightened and the head is lifted. Users of the device have been able to adopt a perfect posture after using it for four hours a day for two to three weeks. They have also been able to maintain a good posture after a few weeks without wearing the device. You might wonder why you would want to improve your posture if you are not experiencing any pain but the article also says that women with improved posture appear more attractive and men are viewed as more successful. It can also reduce the waist size in women by as much as two inches.

In a bizarre money saving exercise Poole council in Dorset are spending a total of £65,000 to find out how they can save money. The money will go towards paying top financial experts from a business consultancy firms that will advise the council on how to cuts costs on buying goods, advertising and other projects. I wonder whether the advice will include how to cuts costs by not hiring expensive £65K consultants, I think they might leave that part out, don't you?

This article suggests that people who drink too much coffee are more likely to experience hallucinations. In a study people who drank more than seven cups of coffee were three times more likely to hallucinate than those who had just one cup. Among the experiences reported were seeing things that were not there, hearing voices and seeing dead people. Whilst there does appear to be link academics have dismissed the study because it is likely that stress can also cause the symptoms and stressed people may also drink more caffeine. If you have recently started seeing dead people, then you might want to take a look at your caffeine intake.

I recently got Rockband and Rockband 2 for Christmas with all the instruments and have been having a lot of fun playing over the past few weeks. One thing that I initially found a little odd was that not all the songs advertised on the back of case were actually included on the game. It took me a little bit of searching around on the internet to find out that to access all of the songs you first need to complete either the game or the challenges to unlock them, there is however, no mention of this in the manual that comes with the game.

I went through Rockband on a solo tour as a vocalist and unlocked all the songs this way. There is a cheat that allows you unlock all of the songs by entering a sequence on the start screen but this apparently does not allow you to save your progress so I decided to do it the hard way. I later discovered that for $5 you can purchase a license key that allows you to import all of the Rockband songs onto your hand drive, so if you are buying both games together and want to access all of the songs from within Rockband 2 then this is quite useful. Since then I have been busy working my way through Rockband 2 unlocking the songs on this disk and now have quite a collection to choose from. My only problem now, is that I want to play in a band and my husband is always too busy to join me, so my band which I named Bunny Foot only has the one member, still it means I get plenty of practice.

When I got married three years ago the best part of my wedding was having all my friends and family around me and that's what made the day so special. Bearing that in mind this article made me a feel a little sad. Its about a woman who is advertising for wedding guests because she faces the prospect of having her wedding day without most of her friends and family. The reason is that they cannot make the trip from her home town in Ukraine to her wedding which is taking place in London. Her parents are able to make it but she will have no other guests on her side, the rest of the congregation will be made up of her husbands friends and family. She is advertising for 30 people to attend her wedding and is offering them a free meal at the reception. The guests need to send a picture and description of themselves. One will be asked to act as a bridesmaid whilst others will be asked to be ushers. I hope she finds some nice people and makes some new friends in the process.

According to this article a teenager in the US managed to send 14,528 in just one month. That's an average of one message for every two minutes that she is awake. The girls father Mr Hardesty immediately questioned the phone bill but it was correct and it seems his daughter just sends a lot of text messages. The average number of text messages sent by a 13 to 17 year old is just 1,742 in comparison which still seems like a lot to me. Mr Hardesty has since said that his daughter is not allowed to text her friends after dinner, I think I would go one step further and take the phone away altogether.

I think its quite easy to perform a three point turn but as this article shows some people can get it very wrong. One lady managed to put her car on top of her neighbours car when instead of hitting the break she hit the accelerator. It requires no further explanation you can see the results in the picture.

I have never really spent long enough on a Rubik's Cube to try and solve the puzzle but I have seen stories about people that can solve them in minutes. This one is slightly different. It's about a man called Graham Parker who finally solved the puzzle after 26 years. He started it in 1983 and since then has spent many sleepless nights battling to solve it. In all it has taken him around 27,400 hours, I'm not sure I would have that much patience.

Sales of traditional lightbulbs have soared as some retailers are finding their sales of the 100 watt bulbs triple. Many supermarkets are now running low on the traditional style bulbs as they have begun to phase them out as part of an agreement with the government. The older style lightbulbs are expected to be scrapped completely by September 2012. Whilst many people seem happy to make the change to energy saving bulbs it appears others believe that they can cause skin rashes, epilepsy and migraines. People also don't like the strip lighting effect that you often get from energy saving lightbulbs. One company thelightbulb.com has apparently seen its sales for the entire month of January last year matched in just the first three days of January this year. Whilst I am happy to use the energy saving variety I do wonder whether the traditional alternative should be sold alongside them so those who have health concerns have the option to purchase an alternative.

Marks and Spencer and Next are to sell handbag sized laptops for just £99. The laptops are made by Elonex a small British computer maker. They will go on sale in both stores from February. The laptops are an attempt to attract female shoppers to cheap computers and have a seven inch screen. They have limited memory but are capable of surfing the internet, reading email etc and can also be used to access your home or work computer remotely. It seems that this mini laptop is targeted at people that might want a PDA but that perhaps would rather have all the functionally you can get with a laptop. It will be interesting to see how many they sell.

For those who have a bit of extra cash to spare you might want to purchase a diamond encrusted iPhone. A jeweller has designed what is the world's most expensive phone. It is made of solid 18 caret gold mixed with white gold and rose gold. It is also encrusted with 138 cut diamonds of the best quality and the home button has a rare 6.6 caret diamond. If you want one it will cost you £1.6 million.

This is quite interesting, its an article about Professor Kenneth Libbrecht who has spent many years studying snowflakes. He has used a specially designed photo microscope to photograph snowflakes often in sub zero temperatures and has now published a book with some of his findings.  According to Libbrecht: "Each snowfall is a photographic adventure because each brings different crystals. And it's true - no two are exactly alike."

If you want to lose weight but can't be bothered to exercise there might soon be a solution for you. This article suggests that a new diet pill that costs just £1 can help you rapidly drop a dress size. The drug is called Ali and will be available over the counter within the next few months. The drug works by preventing the body from absorbing fat in food. In trials people lost an average of 10lb over the course of six months. During the trials people taking the drug also lost 50 per cent more weight than those who relied on simply will power alone. It's not all good news though the pills do have some rather unpleasant side effects. These include severe wind and diarrhoea and the drug can also interfere with the absorption of some vitamins. Personally I don't think its for me, I will stick with trying to eat well and get plenty of exercise.

You might think that's a rather odd question but according to this article where you sit on the bus can reveal your personality. Dr Tom Fawcett studied passengers on a hour long double decker bus route and found that where people chose to sit exposed their temperament and even indicated how they reacted to situations. He found that those who sat at the front of the bus were forward thinkers. People who choose the middle seats were independent minded and people who sat at the back were rebellious and didn't like having their personal space invaded. My initial thought was this must be an amazing bus route if there are free seats, whenever I have needed to use the bus I end up having to stand.  

I came across this interesting article about people who put their pets on the animal equivalent of Prozac. Apparently some pets can become so depressed that the only solution in to give them the drug. The article looks at the cases of a dog, a cat and a parrot all of whom were prescribed the drug and showed a distinct improvement. The dog called Amber was experiencing panic attacks and dark moods but after being prescribed sertraline and animal anti-depressant regained all of her previous confidence. Tigger the cat became depressed when the family had a new baby. He started spraying in the house and spent hours howling. However, after being prescribed Clomicalm Tigger was once again back to his old self. Whilst the case studies are quite interesting I do wonder whether in most of these cases the same effect could be achieved simply by making changes to the animals lifestyle rather than resorting to giving them drugs. However, I may be wrong, having never had a depressed pet its hard to judge.

This is interesting they are boots made from recycled carrier bags. They are made by designer Camila Labra and are called Dacca Boots after the Bangladeshi city of Dhaka which banned carrier bags in 2003. The boots are made entirely out of plastic shopping bags that Miss Labra collects. They are then combined with a cotton lining to make the boots. If you want some they cost £30 a pair. Personally I think they are little odd looking.

In some good news for England football fans the Football Association has cut the price of tickets. The cut comes as the FA try to boost match attendance during the current difficult economic situation. Tickets for the remaining matches this season will be reduced by 25%.

The Forestry Commission has confirmed that big cats have been caught on camera in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The animals were spotted by rangers who were filming a deer survey. The sightings have been confirmed by experienced rangers who would be unlikely to mistake deer for big cats. On both occasions the cats were observed in low light using heat activated vision equipment. Whilst it couldn't be determined what sort of cats there were, it is confirmed that there are certainly cats out there.

According to this article netbooks are the next "must have" item. The smaller laptops seem to be selling surprisingly well with Acer selling half a million of its Aspire one units just in December in the US. The company is now predicting that it will sell between 12 and 13 million of the notebooks by the end of the year. Asus, another manufacturer of notebooks have also seen strong sales and expect to sell over 7 million units this year. With sales of these smaller lower budget laptops taking off many of the the big name brands such as Hewlet Packard, Dell and Sony are also starting to release models. The British manufacturer Elonex will also start selling a handbag sized laptop in M&S next month. The model is aimed at the lower end market and particularly at women buyers. I can see the appeal of these smaller laptops, my husband has just purchased one so that he can work on the train on the way to work and it certainly is small and fits this purpose perfectly.

For those who want to look smart but want to save a bit of cash Asda have launched the £20 women's suit. The suit has been created under the George name and customers can choose either a jacket with a skirt of trousers. Asda have also launched a suit for men which costs just £19.

Like me, many people will be facing a hefty payment to the tax man at the end of the month when the Self Assessment tax returns deadline approaches. One thing to look out for the moment, however, is fake emails claiming to be from the Inland Revenue telling you that you are due a rebate. Whilst it is all to tempting to believe that you are due to get some of your hard earned cash back these emails are simply a scam. They ask you to enter your bank or credit card details and the fraudsters then simply empty the bank account of funds. Other emails ask people to ring a phone number to leave their details. In this case the phone appears to keep ringing but callers are charged up to £6 a minute whilst they wait to get through. The emails is question contain the HMRC logo and come from addresses such as refundtax@hmrc.gov.uk and taxrefund@hmrc.gov.uk. All such emails should simply be ignored. It is also worth remembering that if you are owed a refund by the Inland Revenue they will only ever contact you in writing.

I have been reading with much amusement over the last few days articles related to the cold weather and all the confusion it seems to be causing. I'm not saying its not cold, after all this article points out that temperatures in some parts of the country have reached -12C and that it is colder here  than in Antarctic. It does seem to me, however, that people have forgotten that going back 10 or 15 years ago it was this cold every winter and that most years we had at least some snow. Perhaps the last few years of mild winters mean a little bit of cold weather comes as a shock but in some ways I think it makes a change to have a good cold winter. I have enjoyed all of the pictures of snow that I have seen posted on various websites but my favourite winter picture so far has to be this one of the Meerkats under a sun lamp at Marwell Zoo. 

One potential burglar in Edinburgh got a shock when he tried to break into a flat and was faced with the Norse god Thor, or at least a man dressed as Thor. The burglar leapt from the first floor window of the flat in order to escape Torvald Alexander who was dressed as Thor for a New Year's party that he was going to. Mr Alexander said the burglar may have been intimidated by his costume. I suppose that's one way to deter burglars.

An escaped beaver has been gnawing his way through trees along a Cornish riverbank. Beavers no longer live in the wild in Britain after they were hunted to extinction five hundred years ago. This beaver is one of three that escaped from a wildlife sanctuary in October when an electric fence broke. The other two female beavers were quickly recaptured but the large male beaver remains on the loose. It was only when residents in Cornwall began to notice felled trees that it became clear where the beaver might be hiding. So far, the beaver is still on the loose mainly because of a shortage of beaver traps but it is hoped it might be possible to recapture him by baiting a trap with scent from the females.

I woke up this morning to find there had been some snow in the night. Its not very much but its quite a rarity to see any snow in Egham so it was a surprise. The cats spent about 10 minutes outside digging holes in the snow and then pouncing on them before it got a little too cold for them and all came back aside to find a warm spot to spend the rest of the day. It seems cats don't like snow very much because it makes their paws wet.

Most of us have probably spent a little more than we anticipated over the Christmas period, but one student from Ayrshire had a shock when his bank account showed he was £100bn in the red. He has checked his balance the day before and found that it showed a healthy balance. However, two large withdrawals each of £50bn showed on his statement the next morning. The bank later blamed the problem on a "technical error" and offered him £10 compensation for the phone calls he had made to try and sort the problem out.

We went to PC World today to look for a new laptop and found just what we were looking for in the discounted ex display section. It was priced at £279.99, the only catch was that it had no power adaptor, but for us this wasn't an issue as we had a spare one lying around at home. Rather than just buying the discounted model we first had a look at the full priced ones and were surprised to find that despite the sale model having no power adaptor it was actually the same price as the full priced brand new laptop. Obviously PC World in this instance were trying to pull a fast one and were expecting customers not to question whether they were getting a discount. On questioning the sales rep, we were told that he could give us an additional £20 discount off the ex display model but for the sake of £20 we decided to opt for the brand new one.

This article is interesting, it suggests that it is possible to turn young wine into something more pleasant simply by passing an electric current through it. A study was carried out on a three month old Cabernet Sauvignon from a Chinese winery. The batches of wine spent one, three or eight minutes in various electrical fields before being analysed and sampled by a panel of tasters. It was found that the wine which was initially "harsh and pungent" had become "harmonious and dainty" and tests found the chemistry of the wine had changed making it less acidic and more fruity and fragrant. I wonder if there is a way to do this at home?

Happy 2009 to all my readers. After a very busy few weeks with friends and relatives visiting we spent a very quiet New Years Eve at home with our cats. Although its nice to have company its also nice to have the house back to yourselves. An evening in with a bottle of champagne and watching the neighbours fireworks, was not the most exciting New Year Eve I have ever spent but much needed after all the excitement of the past few weeks. Back to work tomorrow.